Thursday, December 23, 2010

Food: ChicKing @ Tropicana City Mall

In our next installment of food reviews, we move on to another fast food joint, namely ChicKing in Tropicana City Mall. Allow me to put in a quick disclaimer here to say that we are NOT solely fast food eaters and we DO eat at nice places! It's just that these first two posts have both coincidentally been about fast food. :D

Now that we're done with the formalities, let's move on to the review! ChicKing is the newest fast food chicken joint in town. That doesn't mean they are new to the chicken business though - ChicKing has been established since year 2000, originating from Dubai. Today they are expanding regionally and have reached Malaysia and Singapore. Currently besides the outlet in Tropicana City Mall, there are 2 other outlets, one in Melaka and one in "Shalam", which im assuming means Shah Alam!! (Don't blame me for bad spelling - I got it off their website :P)

One thing ChicKing prides itself on is it's halal certification. I'm not sure how that is really going to help them in our market though because every other chicken fast food joint is certified halal too, like KFC or Louisiana Popeye's. To me the only way to break into our Malaysian market is to have something really unique and special, like Darabif! That being said, let's go on to the food.

2 pieces of chicken (1 original 1 spicy) + sides

1 piece of chicken + 3 chicken strips

Only 2 pictures today. On top is what I had, and below is what Wendy had. You can probably already tell by the shortage of pictures that this is going to be a short review! The summary is we were NOT satisfied with what we had, for a few simple reasons.

Firstly, the size of the chicken pieces was terrible. I heard my stomach uttering groans of protest when my eyes saw the 2 pieces of chicken on the cardboard box. First impressions are very important when it comes to trying new food, and in this case, my reaction was an immediate turn-off. I had actually gotten a glimpse of what people on other tables were eating, which is why I only bothered to order 2 pieces because I knew it wasn't going to be a satisfying dinner so why bother spending too much money! Little Miss Sunshine tried the other type of combo meal available at ChicKing, which is 1 piece of chicken and 3 chicken strips. It sounds like a really grand meal; until you see the size of the strips of course. Let's just say you better have a small-ish appetite if you want to be satisfied with this standard meal!

With the main focus of the restaurant, namely the chicken, already such a disappointment, it's hard for the sides to make a difference. The coleslaw was so-so; nothing out of the ordinary here. Only thing I can say is the vegetable bits are cut up into much smaller pieces. Smaller than the usual coleslaw you get at KFC. Some of you might like that kind of coleslaw, but I prefer bigger chunks of veggies / salad in my coleslaw.

The mash potato was dripping in gravy! If this happened in KFC, I'd give an immediate 2 thumbs up!! But unfortunately this is ChicKing, and the sauce is different from KFC sauce. To me it tasted kind of like Maggi mash potato actually..the kind you get when you go to places like 1901 Hotdogs and order mash. This one was okay for me, since I generally like mash potato anyway. Miss Sunshine on the other hand wasn't too thrilled with it. So there you go - one neutral opinion and one slightly negative one on the mash. Hope that helps! :P

So to repeat what I said in the beginning, this was certainly not a satisfying meal for our first time at ChicKing. Will we be back again? Unfortunately, I have to say most probably not. There just wasn't enough to attract us back again after our first time, or to pull us away from our regular KFC and Popeye's haunts. But don't just take our word for it; give it a try for yourself and give us feedback on what you thought. :))

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Welcome to Drops of Contentment; a Malaysian lifestyle review blog by Adam & Wendy. Click on About Us below the header to find out more :) For enquiries / review invitations, please email dropsofcontentment[at]gmail.com